Overview
Table of Contents
When it comes to shopping for the best cheap laptops, you can do a lot with $1,000. (Heck, even $500 cuts some mustard nowadays.) But you’ll probably have to make some compromises along the way to stay below that price point.
That doesn’t mean you have to settle for a total clunker that doesn’t tick any of the boxes on your must-have specs list. It just means you have to shop a little smarter than someone with unlimited funds.
That’s where we come in. The Mashable team is constantly reviewing new laptops with different operating systems and use cases, and we recommend several affordable machines that meet most, if not all of our performance, battery life, and build quality standards.
Our top picksAs of February 2025, we believe the best cheap MacBook is the 13-inch Apple MacBook Air powered by the previous-generation M2 chip. It’s speedy enough for most people, lasts all day, has an excellent keyboard, and starts at $999 (though it’s often on sale for well under $900). What’s more, it recently got a welcome bump to 16GB of base RAM.
Among Windows PCs, the Lenovo Yoga 7i 14 (Gen 9) is currently the best laptop under $1,000 that we’ve tried. It has a peppy processor and a good battery life, it doubles as a tablet, and it starts at $899.99.
If you’re really into Microsoft machines, look into the Surface Laptop Go 3. The company’s current cheapest offering is a super portable notebook with a chic look and a clicky keyboard — though I’d encourage shoppers to find it on sale, given its older CPU. It otherwise starts at $799.99.
The best cheap Chromebook is the $499 HP Chromebook Plus 15.6-inch, with its big, vibrant display and competent everyday performance. It also supports some useful AI features and multimedia editing apps.
Cheap gaming laptops don’t get much better than the Acer Nitro V 15, which combines a cool design with cool Triple-A performance for $999 as tested. (The base model is only $749.) We also recommend the Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE as an even cheaper “cheap gaming laptop” pick: It streams high-end titles well, comes with a really nice 120Hz display, and retails for only $649.
Other cheap laptops on our radarWe’ll soon review the all-new Asus ZenBook A14, the “world’s lightest Copilot+ PC,” which features an OLED display, a neutral-toned chassis made out of a durable material called “Ceraluminum,” and an advertised battery life of up to 32 hours. We briefly tried it in Asus’ private showroom at CES 2025, and it left us extremely impressed. It starts at $899.99.
We also have the latest Framework Laptop 13 in hand for testing. While it comes in just over our “budget” threshold of $1,000 when purchased prebuilt (the DIY Edition starts at $899), the fact that it’s upgradable and repairable makes it seem like a solid long-term value. We were big fans of an older version.
Read on for Mashable’s in-depth guide to the best cheap laptops of 2025. FYI: We’ve listed the pricing and specs of our testing units, which may not apply to each laptop’s base model.
Our Pick
Read Mashable’s full review of the 13-inch Apple MacBook Air (M2).
Who it’s for:Apple’s 13-inch M2 MacBook Air from mid-2022 isn’t quite as fast as the current M3 model, and it lacks its successor’s support for two external monitors and WiFi 6E. (Get that newer version if you want the very best MacBook regardless of price.) But those are easy sacrifices to make if you don’t want to spend more than $1,000. All things considered, it’s a no-brainer recommendation for budget-conscious Apple users in need of a reliable everyday laptop.
Why we picked this:The M2 MacBook Air “delivers everything you need [for] any job centered around using a computer,” to quote Mashable Tech Reporter Alex Perry’s review. That includes an all-day battery life, a snappy keyboard, and “enough horsepower to handle everyday tasks with ease.” It also sports a 1080p FaceTime HD camera that produces a clear picture in low light, plus a four-speaker setup with Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos support. Despite needing a few more ports, it effortlessly clinched our Mashable’s Choice Award — and after a base RAM bump to 16GB in Nov. 2024, it’s now a better value than ever. (It technically isn’t the cheapest MacBook available, as you can still buy the $699 M1 MacBook Air, but we think that model’s too outdated to endorse at this point.)
Note that Apple has discontinued the M2 MacBook Air in a 15-inch screen size, but some configurations were still up for grabs at third-party retailers like Best Buy at the time of writing.
The Good
The Bad
Details
Read Mashable’s full review of the Lenovo Yoga 7i 14 (Gen 9).
Who it’s for:Lenovo’s Yoga 7i is an affordable point of entry to the realm of AI PCs. Solid everyday performance is its biggest asset, but its 2-in-1 design may also entice thrifty shoppers torn between a laptop and a tablet.
Why we picked this:Hailing from Lenovo’s popular Yoga line, this convertible is an understated workhorse. A little boring, sure — the fact that it can flip into tablet and tent modes is probably the most exciting thing about it — but no-nonsense competence has its appeal. “I’m a tab hoarder, and the Yoga 7i 2-in-1 14 was able to handle my crazy daily research antics flawlessly with its Intel Core Ultra 5 125U processor,” said Mashable contributor Sarah Chaney. Bonus: It doesn’t run hot and won’t die on you mid-day.
When you get down to nitty-gritty design details, the Yoga 7i feels a little hit or miss. Its keyboard is “well-spaced and enjoyably springy,” Chaney wrote, with adjustable backlighting and a built-in Copilot key that pulls up Microsoft’s AI assistant. But its trackpad was laggy in testing. Its hybrid form factor gives it versatility, but its hinges aren’t super strong and its display is a bit dim. It has a good selection of ports, but we wish its USB-C ports weren’t restricted to one side. Still, those cons could be put-up-withable for $900 if all you really care about is excellent performance.
The Good
The Bad
Details
Read Mashable’s full review of the Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 3.
Who it’s for:You can stretch your dollar further with other tech giants, but the 2023 Microsoft Surface Go 3 is a good cheap laptop for brand loyalists and those who want a flashy ultraportable. “I can see this being the daily driver of young students or Gen Z users seeking a laptop that can handle casual usage with style and sophistication,” said former Mashable Tech Editor Kim Gedeon.
Why we picked it:The 12.4-inch Surface Laptop Go 3 is basically a “Windows Air,” Gedeon wrote, with a premium build quality that wouldn’t seem out of place among Apple’s ranks. And don’t get her started about its snappy, spiffy keyboard, which she deemed “one of the best I’ve ever used during my entire career as a laptop reviewer.” Its crisp, responsive touchscreen was another highlight (though its bezels are a tad chunky).
Alas, the Surface Laptop Go 3’s internals are far more underwhelming. Its 12th-generation Intel CPU is pretty long in the tooth, and its battery life clocked in at a mediocre eight-ish hours in our testing. But at least it’s frequently on sale at Amazon and Best Buy: I often catch it marked down to $700 or less, which feels way more reasonable given those specs.
The Good
The Bad
Details
Read Mashable’s full review of the HP Chromebook Plus 15.6.
Who it’s for:HP’s Chromebook Plus 15.6 is a bottom-of-the-budget laptop geared toward Google-based productivity and casual entertainment. It makes some build quality concessions that can take some getting used to, but overall, the price is right for basic cloud-based multitasking.
Why we picked this:This big-screener from Google’s “Plus” line of upgraded Chromebooks comes in at only $499. It certainly feels that cheap in some ways: Its keyboard is stiff, its touchpad is mediocre, its speakers are tinny, and its battery life sucks. But it’s sort of difficult to critique those shortcomings in a meaningful way given its price point, and it’s an otherwise capable budget laptop.
The Chromebook Plus 15.6 was easily able to carry me through my daily workload, which involves a lot of browsing, document writing, and email sending. (While its Geekbench 6 multi-core score is far from impressive, you don’t need a ton of built-in oomph: ChromeOS is all about the cloud.) After hours, it made a nice portable entertainment device for movie-watching and cloud gaming when my household’s TV was occupied — shoutout to its huge 1080p display, which is colorful and glare-free. It is made of plastic, but it feels sturdy and durable… though I somehow nicked its lid at one point during my testing period. (It literally just sat on a desk or a table the whole time. I’ve got nothing.)
As a Chromebook Plus, this laptop is equipped with some useful AI tools you won’t find in regular Chromebooks, including Google Photos Magic Eraser and video call effects. I don’t think they’re revolutionary, but they’re nice surprises in such a cheap machine.
The Good
The Bad
Details
Read Mashable’s full review of the Acer Nitro V 15.
Who it’s for:Gedeon put things succinctly in her review: “If you’re just looking for a gaming laptop that ditches all the bells and whistles for impressive gaming performance, the [Acer] Nitro V 15 is the one for you.”
Why we picked this:The Mashable’s Choice Award-winning Nitro V 15 is all about power, power, power — and while it strains the definition of “cheap,” we do think it’s the best budget gaming laptop under $1,000. The model we tested is “packed with delicious internals that can handle triple-A gaming,” said Gedeon, including a 13th-gen Intel Core i7 H-series processor for desktop-level brawn and decent Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 graphics. She found it capable of running Cyberpunk 2077, “one of the most graphics-intensive games on the market, like a champ.”
Acer has made some noteworthy trade-offs to offer that level of oomph at this price point, namely in the realms of display quality (it’s not bright or vivid) and extra fixings (there’s no RGB keyboard or 1080p webcam). Its pathetically short battery life also means it’ll set up permanent shop on your desk — preferably with a microfiber cloth at the ready nearby, as it clings to fingerprints with a passion.
The Good
The Bad
Details
Read Mashable’s full review of the Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE.
Who it’s for:The Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE (the “GE” stands for “gaming edition”) is a budget-friendly beaut for gamers who are tired of trying to keep up with new titles’ fancy hardware requirements — and those who are sick of short-winded gaming PCs.
Why we picked this:Acer’s original Chromebook 516 GE from late 2022 was a fantastic cloud gaming machine, and the new “Plus” version is even better: It kept everything good about the first version — a 1080p webcam, an anti-ghosting RGB keyboard, a 120Hz display, and even its $649 price tag — then tacked on a couple upgrades. There’s a newer Intel Core 5 120U processor inside of it, for one, which nabbed it the highest Geekbench 6 multi-core score out of all the Chromebooks we’ve tested. It also comes with a suite of Gemini AI features. Most notably, though, its battery life increased to over 10 hours per charge — that’s great for a Chromebook and incredible for a gaming laptop. (As things currently stand, it’s the only Chromebook we’ve tried that’s come anywhere close to Google’s “up to 10 hours of battery life” promise.)
When it comes to game-streaming capabilities, the Chromebook Plus 516 GE left Mashable’s Perry “fairly impressed.” He experienced some input latency when playing titles via Xbox Game Pass, but hardly noticed any video buffering or stuttering. (Games looked the best when streamed via Nvidia GeForce Now’s Ultimate tier, he said.) Though Perry said he’d never swap it for his gaming consoles or Steam Deck, he called the Chromebook Plus 516 GE “an incredible value” and an “excellent” pick for anyone who’s into game streaming. “If you want to cheat your way into sort of having a high-end gaming laptop, this is a way to do it,” he wrote.
Next time around, Acer should just make it less clunky, clean up its lid design — the half matte/half gloss thing is “awkward,” per Perry — and give users the ability to turn its refresh rate down. (That’ll preserve its battery life when it’s not being used for gaming.)
The Good
The Bad
Details
Mashable staff or contributors hands-on tested all of the laptops in this guide. At minimum, this involved inspecting their build quality and using them as part of an everyday workflow for several weeks at a time. We worked in different kinds of documents, checked emails, watched videos, took photos on their webcams, participated in video calls, listened to music (via Spotify), played games (if possible), and experimented with any unique software features or use cases they’re meant to support.
Additionally, most of the laptops featured here were made to run industry-standard benchmark software (all but the M2 Apple MacBook Air). We run these benchmarks because they replicate real-world tasks to produce scores we can use to easily compare different laptops’ performance. We also conducted a battery life test on each laptop to gauge their power efficiency. We recently started implementing these benchmarks in our testing, and you can expect to see them in all of our new laptop reviews going forward.
Performance benchmarksWe evaluated the laptops’ overall performance by running the appropriate version of Primate Labs’ Geekbench 6. This test measures CPU performance in a handful of common tasks, and we recorded the resulting multi-core score. The higher the score, the better.
To get a sense of gaming laptops’ graphical prowess, we also played Cyberpunk 2077 on them. We picked this game because it’s a graphically intense AAA title that pushes many systems to their performance limits. If the laptop had a discrete/dedicated Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics card (as opposed to an integrated GPU that’s built into the CPU), we played Cyberpunk once with its DLSS tech off and again with DLSS on using the High preset without ray tracing. This tests the machine’s raw GPU power and its performance with AI upscaling, respectively.
We followed this up with 3DMark’s Time Spy benchmark for gaming PCs and recorded their scores. Again, higher is better.
Battery life benchmarksWe look to see about 11 to 12 hours of battery life in the MacBooks we test, with 15-plus hours being exceptional, and nine to ten hours in the Windows laptops we review, with 12-plus hours being ideal. Gaming laptops are a different story: They only need to last at least two hours per charge to get our approval, earning extra brownie points for reaching the four-hour mark. Meanwhile, eight hours is our baseline for Chromebooks, but nine to ten hours is best.
We’ve assessed laptops’ stamina a couple different ways in the past. (More on that shortly.) We used UL Solutions’ PCMark 10 battery life stress test on the Microsoft Surface Laptop Go and the Acer Nitro V 15, and Principled Technologies’ CrXPRT 2 battery life test on the HP Chromebook Plus 15.6-inch. Both tests ran a series of apps and functions until the laptop conked out.
On the Lenovo Yoga 7i 14 (Gen 9) and the Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE, we conducted a video rundown test that involved playing a looped 1080p version of Tears of Steel, a short open-source Blender movie, at 50 percent brightness.
In order to standardize our battery life testing methodology, we will only be using the Tears of Steel rundown on all MacBooks, Windows laptops, and Chromebooks from here on out. We’ll stick with PCMark 10’s battery life test for gaming laptops.
Final thoughtsAfter evaluating a laptop’s hands-on performance and benchmark testing results, we made our final recommendations based on whether we thought they offered a good overall value for the money. For the purposes of this guide, we defined a “cheap laptop” as one that costs less than $1,000.
Lastly, should be noted that these aren’t the only cheap laptops we’ve tried — we’re constantly testing and assessing new models across different categories, and many don’t make the final cut. With that in mind, you can expect this guide to evolve on a pretty continuous basis. We’re always on the lookout for new top pick contenders.
Frequently Asked Questions
Certain times of the year are better for laptop shopping than others. If you’re looking for a good deal on a laptop, we recommend buying around Black Friday, during back-to-school season (with a close watch on Amazon’s Prime Day sale), and over long holiday weekends. If you’re just after brand-new models with the latest specs, bargains be damned, you’ll see them hitting the market in January and February after the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
For more intel and buying tips, check out our guide to when you should buy a laptop.
Haley Henschel is a Chicago-based Senior Shopping Reporter at Mashable who reviews and finds deals on popular tech, from laptops to gaming consoles and VPNs. She has years of experience covering shopping holidays and can tell you what’s actually worth buying on Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day. Her work has also explored the driving forces behind digital trends within the shopping sphere, from dupes to 12-foot skeletons.
Haley received a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and honed her sifting and winnowing skills at The Daily Cardinal. She previously covered politics for The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, investigated exotic pet ownership for Wisconsin Watch, and blogged for some of your favorite reality stars.
In her free time, Haley enjoys playing video games, drawing, taking walks on Lake Michigan, and spending time with her parrot (Melon) and dog (Pierogi). She really, really wants to get back into horseback riding. You can follow her on X at @haleyhenschel or reach her via email at [email protected].
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings